Some Networks Weigh Changes in Contestant Selection for 'Reality' Shows

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Network programming executives for CBS and Fox, expressing concern about the risks of putting contestants with uncertain backgrounds on prime-time television ''reality'' shows, said they were considering changes in the selection process for contestants.

Leslie Moonves, the president of CBS Television, which has broadcast the two most talked-about reality shows this summer, ''Survivor'' and ''Big Brother,'' said at a news conference that his network, which employed two private investigation firms to vet participants in the shows, would ''re-examine'' the process. Contestants were selected for the shows after volunteering and then being interviewed. Mr. Moonves said he would hesitate before again using the firm that investigated contestants on ''Big Brother.'' He declined to name the firm.

''Big Brother,'' which isolates 10 strangers in a house full of cameras, was criticized after one of its participants was revealed to have connections to the black leader Khalid Abdul Muhammad, who has expressed anti-Semitic views in the past.

In a separate news conference here before reporters covering the television industry, Sandy Grushow, the chairman of entertainment for the Fox network, said he had hired the firm of Price Waterhouse Cooper to provide ''risk management'' assessment for reality shows Fox was developing.

Fox had its own problems earlier this year with ''Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire?,'' in which women competed for the chance to meet a man they had never met, after revealations that the groom, Rick Rockwell, had once been the subject of a judge's temporary restraining order issued at the request of Mr. Rockwell's former fiancee.

Fox has deals for at least three reality shows in the next year. One, ''Wanted,'' will send a team of contestants around the country trying to accomplish certain tasks before they are captured by a team of bounty hunters. Another, ''Million Dollar Mysteries,'' will offer cash to viewers who are able to crack long-unsolved criminal cases. The third, ''Boot Camp,'' will put contestants through the rigors of military-style training for a chance to win a big cash prize.

The CBS and Fox executives both acknowledged that the reality shows carried risks. Mr. Moonves defended CBS's decision to broadcast its reality shows this summer, citing strong ratings, as well as the attention they have brought to the network.

''People are writing about CBS who never wrote about us before,'' he said. ''But right now we're on a high wire without a net. It's very scary. It's very exciting.'' He added that he was proud of ''Big Brother'' and saw no reason to apologize for anything that has been on the show, including revelations that one participant's marriage was deteriorating.

''We can't be held responsible,'' Mr. Moonves said. ''People are going into these things out of their own free will.'' He called ''Big Brother'' an experiment and a ''work in progress,'' but he did not rule out producing another ''Big Brother'' series during the next television season.

Mr. Moonves said the reality shows had been extremely important financially to CBS because they had attracted the younger viewers that advertisers pay a premium to reach. He noted that on Aug. 23 CBS will devote its entire three hours of prime time to the finale of ''Survivor,'' the program that has chronicled the efforts of 16 people on a tropical island to survive a Darwinian game of attrition. The show, expanded from its usual hour to two hours that evening, will be followed by a one-hour panel discussion show.

Some advertisers will pay as much as $600,000 for a 30-second commercial in the finale. ''That's unheard of at CBS,'' Mr. Moonves said.

While the reality shows have flourished at CBS this summer, and ABC and Fox have announced plans for other shows in the genre, NBC still has not announced the acquisition of any reality shows. NBC's program executives conceded last week that they had hurt their ratings position by being slow to recognize the reality programming trend. Mr. Moonves said, ''If we didn't have these shows on the air we would have been criticized for not having summer programming.'' Still, Mr. Grushow, at Fox, said the popularity of the shows was forcing programmers into a choice between risk and ratings.

''You're paralyzed if you're unwilling to assume some risk, and you're a fool if you say risk be damned,'' Mr. Grushow said. ''I think we are all trying to balance two impulses: the desire and need to win, based on obvious corporate pressures, and trying to do it with some honor and some integrity and some dignity. When you're looking at reality programming, boy, never have those two impulses collided more.''

Mr. Moonves said CBS had turned down additional reality shows offered to the network. But CBS does plan to capitalize as soon as possible on the spectacular success of ''Survivor,'' which has set ratings records this summer.

Mr. Moonves announced that a second 13-week run of ''Survivor,'' this time isolating contestants somewhere in the Australian outback, will start its run on a Sunday night January, immediately following the broadcast of the Super Bowl.

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